Historic Photographs

Occoquan Methodist Episcopal Church and Shanklin Home

Underwood Home - Methodist Church - Town Hall

Occoquan Methodist Episcopal Church and the Shanklin Home (the Pink Bicycle Tea Room)

The photograph above shows the first Occoquan Methodist Episcopal Church and the home of the Shanklin family. Although Methodist congregations held services in the Occoquan/Woodbridge area earlier in the 19th century, it was not until 1862 that trustees purchased land in the town of Occoquan from the Samuel Janney family for the construction of a church. After securing the land, more than two decades passed before the congregation was finally able, in 1884, to build and dedicate the Occoquan Methodist Episcopal Church on Commerce Street in Occoquan.

In 1916, a fire originating in the Alton Hotel on Mill Street swept through town, destroying a number of buildings, the church among them. For a decade the congregation was thus forced to meet elsewhere, including in the Odd Fellows Hall on Commerce Street, until a new church was eventually built on Mill Street in 1926. The congregation continued to worship in the new church until 1958, when it merged with the Woodbridge Methodist Episcopal Church to become St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, and moved to its current location on G Street in Woodbridge. The church on Mill Street became Occoquan’s Town Hall in 1963.

Although nothing remains of the original church, the adjacent Shanklin family home (on the right in the picture above) remains today as the Pink Bicycle Tea Room at 303 Commerce Street, and retains many of its earlier exterior features.

Underwood Home - Methodist Church - Town Hall

The photograph above left shows the home of John Underwood. Underwood was a wheelwright, carpenter, and boat builder in Occoquan. On July 4, 1860, at the age of 32, Underwood participated with other local Abraham Lincoln supporters in erecting on the property of Joseph T. Janney (at Rockledge) a pole adorned with banners containing the names of Abraham Lincoln and his running mate Hannibal Hamlin. The Prince William Militia chopped the pole down on July 27, 1860. In the presidential election the following November, Abraham Lincoln received 55 votes in Prince William County, all of which came from Occoquan. Once the Civil War began, Confederate forces held Underwood in suspicion. On one of two raids into Occoquan in December of 1862, Confederate forces took captive the “noted abolitionist and traitor.” To reward his loyalty after his release in 1863, Abraham Lincoln sought a position for Underwood, who became a U.S. marshal.

Underwood’s residence burned down in the fire of 1916. The congregation of the Occoquan Methodist Episcopal Church, whose original structure on Commerce Street had also been destroyed in the fire of 1916, in December of 1926, dedicated a new structure on the old Underwood property. The congregation continued to worship in this new church until 1958, when they merged with the Woodbridge Methodist Episcopal Church to become St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, and moved to their current location on G Street in Woodbridge. In 1963 the town of Occoquan purchased the former church on Mill Street to serve as the Occoquan Town Hall, a use which continues today (photograph above right).